Justin Fox makes minicomics: Earth Minds Are Weak, 21st-Century Depression Comics and I Dreamed of You and Mr. Eybyaninch. All with Cliff Face Comics.
This is his work blog.

Monday, January 21, 2008

WU-TANG CLAN — 8 DIAGRAMS

WU-TANG CLAN — 8 DIAGRAMS

This album isn't horrible. It's not great either. Some of it it overrated (there's actually less excellent rapping on Campfire than bad smapling) and some of it is underrated (take Ghostface's bit out of The Heart Gently Weeps and it's not bad at all).

Take It Back: Ghost is great here. U-God isn't — but he IS having fun, and that's something Wu forgets all too often.

U-God is also having fun on Get Them Out the Way Pa. Masta Killa sounds really uncomfortable. And he will throughout the entire album. What happened to that guy?

And what happened to RZA? Never the strongest MC, but he used to be ok. Now he's ridiculous. Stick to just beats if you're gonna rap this way.

Unpredictable is almost all awesome except for that chorus? Who is that? What is that? I can't even find the song on some other tracklistings. Rushing Elephants either (which is also pretty good). But that's the thing with this album. Almost every song could at least be good, but there's some awful chorus, or Ghostface singing, or RZA rapping, or Masta Killa getting woken up from a coma. Look at Wolves. U-God is there to kill. Meth is there to kill. GZA is there to at least try to hold it together, but George Clinton ruins the whole thing with his senile stoner bizniz.

There's nothing here that's going to challenge 36 Chambers in greatness. There's a lot of Method Man, who seems like he knows he's due for a comeback. There's not nearly enough GZA or INS. There's way too much RZA and Masta Killa. Too many bad skit/samples. WAY too much George Clinton and other people on choruses.

This is only the first half of the album, but the second half about Guns and RZA's dirgelike monologuing on Allah and everyone surprised that Ol Dirty is dead and some dude (Gerald Alston) singing some stuff for minutes before anyone raps... and it's all hard to pay attention to the whole of it's nearly 70 minutes.

Once again, the Wu has returned and they haven't saved hiphop at all. They just kept the lame going.